1. Technical Field
The invention relates to a new process of communication using computers and associated communications infrastructure. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and apparatus for computed relevance messaging.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The aim of a communications process is to relay information between pairs of actors who, for purposes of the discussion herein, consist of an information provider and an information consumer. The following briefly discusses the concerns of each party.
Concerns of Information Provider
The information provider knows of pieces of information and of corresponding situations in which certain consumers would find those pieces of information interesting, useful, or valuable. For example, such pieces of information may concern problems consumers who have particular attributes might be interested in solving or that concern opportunities of interest to consumers having such particular attributes. The provider wishes to distribute the information to those consumers in those specific situations.
In principle, an information provider might know of thousands or millions of conditions about which it can offer information. The audience for such conditions might involve thousands or millions of consumers.
A particularly interesting situation is where a typical piece of information should be directed only to consumers having a very special combination of circumstances. A typical piece of information would in principle be of interest to only a small fraction of the consumer base, but where this small fraction nevertheless amounts to large number of consumers.
A challenging but very important case occurs when verifying when the conditions for applicability of a certain piece of information requires knowing a great deal of detailed information about the consumer, his concerns and affiliations, or his property. This information might be considered very sensitive by consumers, who would not want to participate in a process that required disclosure of the information to the provider. Therefore, it might seem impossible to target the information to consumers because only the consumers have access to the information required to make the determination that the information applies to them, and they are unwilling to expend the effort to make a determination themselves, or to give others access to the sensitive information required to make the determination on their behalf.
Concerns of Information Consumer
The consumer is an individual or organization that knows of information providers who have information of potential benefit to them. The consumer may in fact know of tens or hundreds of such providers. Typically, at any given moment, only a small fraction of the information being offered by the information provider is of potential interest to the consumer. The consumer does not want to review all the information available from the information provider. He would prefer to see the subset consisting of information, which is relevant to the consumer.
Typically, the information which the provider is offering changes with time and the conditions experienced by the consumer are changing with time. The consumer would prefer not to have to track changes continually in his own status and the status of the information providers offerings. He would also prefer not to have to remember that pieces of information published some time before could have suddenly become applicable.
The consumer would prefer that a procedure be available for automatically detecting the existence of applicable information as it became applicable, either because the consumer's situation had changed, because the information provider's offerings had changed, or because the conditions for applicability of the information involved time considerations which had become applicable. The consumer would prefer not to reveal to the provider information about his identity or the details of his interests, preferences, and possessions. Rather, the consumer would prefer to receive information in a form where he may carefully study it before using it.
The consumer would also prefer to have a method to inform himself about known problems with an information provider or with a certain piece of information before using the information. Typically, the consumer would prefer that if the decision to use a piece of information is made, the application of the information is painless and essentially automatic. The consumer would prefer to be insulated from the prospect of damage caused by incorrect information.
It would therefore be advantageous to provide a communications technique that addressed each of the above concerns with regard to both the information provider and the information consumer.